Welcome to our classroom blog! Our blog is like a journal, a never ending account and record of all the exciting adventures we experience in Kindergarten. We are an enthusiastic group of people who care about each other and the world. We hope you enjoy reading, listening and watching what we do!

Monday, January 30, 2012

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Everyday we have a leader of the day. This is an opportunity for
children to read the morning message with the class, ask questions,
interact with the activities on our SMARTboard, make connections with
peers, use a variety of technologies that promote the idea of being a
responsible digital citizen and build self confidence. Kindergarten
children are amazing. They love being the leader and sharing their
ideas and observations with their classmates.

We have lots of different materials that encourage children to create and design ideas and understandings of things they experience and see. In the block area the children have lots of opportunities to work in collaborative groups to create structures, share ideas, make connections with each other and reflect on what thy created.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

This morning Ms. Heather came back to Kindergarten. Today she introduced a new vocabulary word to us, expected. We had a wonderful discussion about what is expected of us when we are in school. When we are using "whole body listening" we are able to do what is expected. We use many different body parts to help us listen and focus when others are talking. When we practice this we discovered that we are able to listen in a way that we understand what is being said! Thanks Ms. Heather for coming and sharing these ideas with us. If you are interested in learning more about Social Thinking go to their website at: http://www.socialthinking.com/

Later in the morning when I was reading with a child, he made an awesome connection! He noticed the word expect was in a text he was reading. He also noticed how the words mean similar things even though they were used differently in both the poster and the text. Great connection and observation!

Saturday, January 14, 2012

Every week the children check their email and reply to their parents and other family members who have sent an email. This is a wonderful way for the children to begin to understand the importance of becoming a safe, responsible, digital citizen. The children gain extra reading practice when they get to read their new email. Then when they reply, they simply type their message. As young reader's and writer's we have been sounding out words we wish to use as well as leaving spaces between our words. We discovered that we can do this on our own and that our message is clearer when we leave spaces between our words.

In Kindergarten we are learning about writing for purpose. This is another great example of that! We are using email not only to practice literacy skills, but to make connections with others and to share what we are learning and exploring during the day.

Ms. Heather visited Kindergarten on Friday to teach us how to listen to understand with our whole body! We have a chart in our classroom now that reminds us of how we use our body to become an active listener. We have little visual reminders on wooden sticks to help us notice when we need reminders for the parts of our bodies that are forgetting "how to" listen.Ms. Heather will visit Kindergarten each Wednesday morning for 5 more weeks to read us stories about how to use our bodies to become active listeners.

Thursday, January 12, 2012

On Monday Mrs. Tatlock visited our classroom. She read us a story, taught us a song and talked to us about our minds! We learned that when we are in clear mind we feel good,when we are in mud mind we are not happy and when we are in sparkle mind we feel fantastic! Pumsy, our friend, the dragon talked to us aboout how he feels when he is in mud mind, clear mind and sparkle mind. Pumsy will visit our classroom on 3 more Mondays to talk to us and read us more stories about feelings.

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

Today we learned about Gmail in our classroom. Mrs. Birdsall our awesome technology educator visited Kindergarten and talked to us about how lucky we are to have email, why we have it and how it helps us with our learning.

Here are some of the wonderful things that the kids children had to say about email:

"Why would we want to use Gmail?"

instead of using my mom's iPhone I could send an email,instead of texting, you can make an email to a friend

"It helps our learning by"......

it helps us learn words when we type a message, you can practice writing your name and then people know who you are, you sign your name when you write a message"It helps us with our reading because"....... you can learn new words, you re-read what you write, you can read your message, email has lots of words to read